Saberhagen, Fred - Pilgrim 02 - After the Fact by Saberhagen Fred

Author:Saberhagen, Fred [Saberhagen, Fred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General, Time Travel
ISBN: 9780671653910
Publisher: Baen
Published: 1988-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

On the morning of Wednesday, April twelfth, Jerry awoke from a confused dream in a state of disoriented terror. He lay for an indeterminate time staring at the white plastered ceiling above him before he could recognize it as that of his room in Willard’s, and remember how he had come to be here lying under it.

Next he tried to gather his thoughts, to sort out the dream he had just experienced from the hardly Jess probable reality of the last few days. In his dream he had been somehow forced to play the part of a gate-guard at the White House. He knew he was only playing the part, because the job was not properly his and at any moment his false position was likely to be discovered. Worse than that, he could see that the assassins were already approaching, a horde of them on horseback, moving in a compact mass like the Union cavalry he had seen in the streets.

Jerry ran forward, trying his best to block the killers’ entry, but there was no gate in the iron fence for him to close, only a great gaping gap with broken hinges hanging at the sides. The mounted men ignored Jerry’s feeble efforts to hinder them and charged on past, raising sabers and carbines as they swept on to kill Lincoln, who was standing in the White House window holding an anachronistic flashlight.

Now, as Jerry lay in bed regarding one of Willard’s plastered ceilings, and listening to the rumble of wagon-traffic in the street outside, the dream-terror gradually faded into a very conscious horror at the truth. In this earlier and in some ways so much more innocent version of America, the President appeared to be readily accessible to any enemy. It was unbelievable to Jerry, raised on the idea of celebrities as casual targets, that the man had already survived more than four years in office in this bitterly divided country.

Someone in the restaurant last night had been talking about Lincoln’s customary bodyguard, a fanatically devoted friend of his from Illinois named Ward Lamon, who was apparently of gigantic strength and went armed to the teeth day and night. Jerry supposed such a watchdog might have had a great deal to do with Lincoln’s survival up till now. But another of the people in the restaurant had commented that Lamon had just been dispatched by Lincoln on some confidential mission. That, Jerry supposed, was going to make things easier for John Wilkes Booth on Friday night. And perhaps the absence of such a protector would make things simpler for Jerry too. At least he could hope.

And at least he had the name of the assassin—John Wilkes Booth. He could have remembered that even if Pilgrim had not reminded him. He could remember too that Booth had been—or was—an actor.

The trouble was that last night almost anyone, with only a minimum of luck, would have been able to work his way to within a few feet of a well-lighted and helpless Presidential target.

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